


Kintsugi

by alittleliar



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M, Older Characters, everyone's running from the galra police, gintama au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-10 02:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12289701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittleliar/pseuds/alittleliar
Summary: They fought their war. They lost. Keith watches the universe move on in a daze, trying to keep himself from shattering. A Gintama AU.





	1. prologue: whispers of the dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, you don't need to know Gintama to get this story.

The rain fell gently, but Keith felt nothing. He was too numb, his body nothing more than stone encasing a heart of ice. His eyes gazed blankly down at his feet moving slowly, mechanically through the puddles, making one loud splash after the other in the stifling quiet air.

_“Never stop moving, never look behind.”_

_“Never stop to regret.”_

His fingers loosened, and he flinched, startled by the clatter of a blade dropping to the ground. Keith stared at the black sword now submerged in rainwater, red mists of blood billowing out to be washed away. Almost in morbid fascination, he brought his hands up to his face, watching them shiver and twitch.

Watching as red blood trickled down his wrists, the rain cleansing them of scarlet.

Red blood. Human blood. _Blood of his-_

_A gentle smile, the crinkle of his eyes as his lips shaped words he couldn’t hear over the loud thumps of his beating heart-_

He dropped his hands. His feet started to trudge through the muddy puddles again, past the blood, the viscera, the corpses. The system’s Star finally seemed to peak through the grey clouds, shining gentle rays of light like patchwork on the cold, senseless graves of the numerous nameless dead.

The dark sword glinted in the water, a baleful purple, before the mud settled to conceal it.

_“Promise me, Keith, to protect them-“_

_“Hey, promise me, if I die-“_

Whispers of the dead. They would not stop. They would never stop.

A hoarse, quiet breath escaped his lips, hitching higher and higher to the cloudy sky, ending as a soundless, whispered wail.

_“-take care of them for me, Keith.”_


	2. chapter 1: unfamiliar

 

-5 years later-

 

 

The sunset was breathtaking.

Keith watched the red sun, much larger and hotter than the one back at home, submerge itself into the sea, its last scarlet rays warmly scattering through the cloudless sky. The sight blurred, and he blinked as a tear streamed down his cheek.

It felt like home.

“Oh, Keith.”

Cold arms embraced him from behind, the gentle cradle both numb and biting. A frigid breath nipped at his ear. “There is no home anymore.”

Keith watched dully as more and more corpse-like hands reached from behind to grip his arms, legs, his throat. Hoarse, whispering voices grew louder and louder around him, brought with the chill wind, and Keith closed his eyes.

_What are our chances here commander?---We’ve got the Red Daemon on our side, there’s no way we’ll lose---take us home---take us safe---yoU LiED---YoU LET uS DiE-----_

A single, warm hand cupped his cheek gently, and Keith opened his eyes.

Black eyes looked upon him kindly, eyes crinkled with lips widened to a gentle smile. Keith’s fingers twitched, and he finally began to struggle against his icy bonds which just gripped him tighter. He opened his mouth to let out a soundless scream, unable to do anything but watch as the warmth of the black eyes faded to a lifeless hollow and the hand stiffened and cooled to ice.

He felt the cold breath huff in laughter.

“Nowhere, and no-one.”

 

* * *

 

“-Keith, Keith?! Open the door my boy! Uncle Coran has come bringing gifts!”

Keith gasped, his blanket falling off as he surged up from his bed. His heart thudded forcibly, loud in his ears as he groaned, wiping his cold sweat off his face with a trembling hand.

“Keith?! I have to inform you I’ve been given the authority from Allura to uh-, quote on quote ‘kick down the door and drag the trash out of his alcoholic stupor.’ Her words not mine by the way! You know you’re my favourite!”

“Give me a moment Coran, quiznak.” Keith combed back his bedhead with a hand, reaching for the wooden sword at his bedside as he got up. He slid it in place by his waist on his belt as he ambled to his front door, yawning. Rubbing his eyes, he slammed it open.

“Oh so you are awake! I hope you do realise you’re really not using that word correctly?” Coran gave him a wide grin, only half hidden by his giant orange moustache. Keith leaned on his doorway, glaring at the older man who looked entirely too chipper for the early morning. He himself was still in his grey pyjamas, his hair a mess.

“Is my ‘gift’ another demand for rent? I thought I already told Allura I’d have it by tonight. I got a job today that’ll pay upfront and pay heaps, I’m serious.”

“What? No! I mean, yes, I was told to remind you of your upcoming rent, but I thought I’d soften the uh…negative aspects of being a tenant with…” Coran pulled out a brown paper bag from behind him and shoved it at the younger man. “Tada! Breakfast!”

Keith peered in with a raised eyebrow. Two purple unidentifiable blobs wobbled unsteadily back. He looked back up at the preening Altean. “Is this…palatable?”

“Well my boy, that’s why I have you to find out! I can’t just try out a new batch to the customers without some kind of testing!”

“…am I really your favourite?”

“Well, I’m off, my boy! Allura wants her rent back before she closes down the pub tonight or she threatens to uh-, quote on quote ’beat the money out of you like a human candy machine.’”

Keith waved his hand irritably at him. Allura’s threats were multiple, varied and quite frankly, very creative, but she rarely acted on them despite her legendary Altean strength. “Yeah, yeah I get it. Money by tonight, yes whatever. Bye Coran.” He slammed the door as the older man flounced off cheerfully and sighed, glancing at the clock on the wall. He still had time for some breakfast before his job today. Keith side glanced the paper bag distastefully. Some _real_ breakfast. A wide yawn escaped his mouth as he meandered to the kitchen area of his tiny flat.

Loud, rapid knocks resounded from the front door.

Keith groaned, retracing his steps to the front door to slam it back open. “Quiznak, what now Coran, did you forget something-“

The figure before him seemed to startle, their finger awkwardly still raised in the air from pushing the doorbell.

It wasn’t Coran.

Keith narrowed his eyes, his right hand straying towards the wooden blade on his waist as he gave the figure before him a perfunctory scan. Too short to be a full-grown Galra, with a large cloak – probably hiding weapons -  and mechanical mask, designed either to help them breathe in the planet’s atmosphere or to hide their identity. Or both. Arus was a seedy, backwater planet out in the middle of nowhere with no real value to the Galra – but that made it the perfect destination for fugitives, pirates, and all other types of scum. A mask wasn’t entirely suspicious, but it did make him wary.

The figure slowly lowered their arm and cleared their throat before speaking, their voice garbled and staticky, “Is this the residence of ‘Freelancer Keith’?”. So, the mask also functioned as a voice modulator. Paranoid then, either irrationally or rightfully so. Keith was willing to believe the latter.

He felt his face put on his signature scowl and tried to morph it into a smile he knew looked awkward and unnatural. Dealing with customers was annoying, but money was money. “That’s me, yeah. Anything I can do for you? For a price, of course.”

The figure seemed to pause at that, before slowly reaching up to the back of their head to unlock their mask with two quiet clicks. The mask was pulled down, revealing light brown hair, short and curling at the tips, amber eyes-

His breath hitched.

_Light brown hair, amber eyes – warm and clear like honey, curious and truthful, always crinkled in happiness, as hard as it was to find in the shitholes they found themselves in-_

_-Blank, staring blindly up the raining sky, through to the blackness of space that he’d never managed to escape to in the end – the locks of his hair darkened with rain and blood - the rain streaming down his cheeks like tears if Keith tried hard enough to imagine- imagine the small huffs of breath escaping his bloodied lips- imagine his caved in chest whole and moving gently in and out-  imagine his eyes liquid warm and -_

_Imagine he’s alive, and not a battered corpse, just a single number in the battlefield full of the countless dead._

“Matt?” A wavering whisper, quiet in the silence.

Keith hadn’t noticed himself step closer, his trembling hand reaching up to touch. Was this real? A cruel dream dressed in visions of the past? Or had he finally started hallucinating? He needed to check, he needed to-

His finger gently brushed Matt’s cheek. Matt, who should have smiled or laughed or given him a hug by now, instead of watching him warily with wide eyes, carefully keeping himself still as if placating a wild animal.

_No._

Keith retracted his hand slowly. He could see the differences now. Too short, too young - barely a teenager - hair too dark, his- no, her face too soft, her skin unblemished with no scar on the left cheek. Matt’s eyes had always been kind, but hers were hardened, simmering with the embers of something that looks like distant, well nurtured rage.

Keith’s hand fell gracelessly to his side, and he stepped back.

The stranger watched him cautiously before speaking again. “May I come in? I don’t feel so comfortable revealing my face out here in the open.”

Keith’s mouth was dry, his skin still prickling with sweat and haunting memories. He wordlessly stepped aside as the girl strode in with purposeful steps, watching blankly at the dust lingering in the morning sunlight through the doorway. Closing his eyes, Keith expelled a tired sigh before shutting the door and following the girl into his living room.

“You want tea or coffee or anything?” Keith stared at the brown paper bag still in hand for a second before throwing it into a corner. Probably best not to accidently poison anyone.

“No thank you.” The girl perched herself comfortably on his one of his ratty couches, the large cloak billowed around her in a wrinkled circle. Her eyes blazed in the dim light, focused on the empty cups scattered on the coffee table before her that Keith hadn’t bothered to wash. Keith slowly settled himself opposite her, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

An awkward silence descended upon the two. There was an interesting whorl pattern at the edge of the coffee table, Keith realised. Nearly a perfect circle-

“My name is Katie Holt.”

Keith paused, before shifting to lean back on his seat. “Matt’s sister.”

“Yes.”

“Are you…looking for him?”

She looked up to direct her intense stare at him, unreadable but with the faint whiff of anger. “No. I know where he is.” Her fingers gripped tightly on the mechanical mask before relaxing with her quiet sigh. “Even I know better than to wish for the dead to return.”

Keith held his forehead, before groaning and covering his eyes. “Why are you here, Katie.”

“I want your aid, Red Daemon.”

He could still feel her gaze on him, heavy with belief and intention. “My name is Katie Holt, but people know me as Pidge. I’m the leader of Kerberos.”

Keith stilled. There had been talk of a new terrorist group lately, interesting enough to reach through the grapevines to Arus, a planet far removed from any of the action. Organised, built upon the skeletons of the old rebellion, revitalised with the strength of a new leader and the successes of their many coordinated, small but targeted attacks on outposts to hinder Galran communication.

The Rebels of Kerberos.

Keith heard a thunk. He peered through his fingers at the object Pidge had placed on the table, before lifting his hand to stare, stunned.

Purple metal glinted tranquilly in the dim light, the Marmorite emblem blazon on the dagger’s black hilt.

His blade.

Pidge watched him expectantly, but Keith did not reach out for it, instead clasping his hands together before his lips. She watched as his purple eyes stared hollowly through the pale lavender metal, to past events and people long gone.

“You’ve been to Naxzela” His voice was quiet, flat.

“Your last battleground. Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” Pidge answered calmly. She stared at him heavily before glancing at the dagger. “This blade isn’t a gift of sentimentality. It’s a call to arms.”

She leaned forward, her small hands flat on the wood of the table in between the empty mugs. “You lost your rebellion. But your cause, your _conviction_ , it wasn’t wrong. You weren’t wrong.” Keith looked away, unable to hold her fiery gaze.

“So fight again, Keith Kogane. _Red Daemon_. Fight with us.”

Pidge leaned closer to hiss quietly, each word heavy with intention. “Make the lives of your dead men, your comrades, my brother, worth something more than just a message to the rest of the enslaved planets of the Galra Empire’s, of Zarkon’s strength.”

Keith finally looked back at her. Her eyes were intense, burdened with loss and regret, ringed black with bad dreams, sleepless nights and relentless plans. Her lips were cracked at the edges, her hair uncombed and unmanaged, her nails bitten to bleeding. A girl full of purpose, uncaring of how far it would take her, and where it could end.

He looked back at the dagger, before closing his eyes.

“No.”

Pidge leaned back, her eyes clouded with disbelief.

“No. I’m…I’m done. I’m done with…with all of this.” Keith shook his head, his voice beginning to break. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Please.” A quiet plead.

Keith just shook his head wordlessly.

“I see.” Pidge watched him quietly, eyes full of disappointment and pity. She stood up, sliding a small card with a hastily written contact number underneath one of the mugs, and moved to leave.

“Don’t do this, Katie.” Pidge paused on the doorway of the living room as he spoke. “You’ll only lose everything, your comrades, your life.” Keith chuckled sadly. “I know.”

She didn’t turn to face him. “Yes, but this way, my life will have at least been worth something.”

Keith stared sombrely at her small back, his voice quiet. “Does a life have to mean anything? Isn’t it worth it to just be alive?”

Pidge finally turned, giving him a small smile. “Keep the blade, Keith. Call me if you change your mind.”

Keith watched her leave, strapping her mechanical mask back on as she strode out of the flat, closing the front door softly behind her. The silence she left behind was almost stifling, and Keith turned back to stare vacantly at the dagger still laid on the coffee table. Hesitant fingers slowly reached close enough to touch, before pulling away swiftly as Keith threw himself back, covered his face and sighed.

“Fucking quiznak.”

 

* * *

 

The dying star was resplendent in its glory. Waves and waves of celestial debris cascaded out from the chaotic core, the scarlet star slowly becoming smaller and smaller, a lone, tiny figure in the blackness of space.

A single, half-lidded eye watched the process impassively, its dark blue iris gleaming in its glow. It blinked, surrounded by wisps of smoke, expelled from the owner’s mouth and the oriental pipe hanging loosely in the man’s hand. Dressed carelessly in a navy robe patterned with white butterflies, the brown-haired man lounged against the spaceship’s window lazily, uncaring as the loose, sloppily applied bandages covering his left eye began to slip.

A set of footsteps grew louder as a purple skinned man walked up to him with purposeful strides, dressed in sleek black armour. The blue-eyed man watched the star a little longer, seemingly imprinting it in his mind, before turning his head to remorselessly blow smoke towards the newcomer.

The man grimaced and waved the smoke away. “You humans already have such short life-spans, I can’t say I understand this urge you have to whittle it down even further.”

“Careful, Lotor. You almost sound like you care.” The blue-eyed man gave him a cat-like grin, but his eye was hard and callous. “Besides, I doubt I’ll live long enough for the consequences of bad decisions like these to catch me.“

He turned away to stare back at the dying star, his voice quiet, leaving breaths of fog on the glass.

“I doubt I’d want to.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so Gintama/Voltron with less emphasis on the humour of Gintama and more on the tragic backstories.  
> Also, I was trying to describe the process of a red giant becoming a white dwarf but I have no fucking clue what an actual dying star looks like space is confusing jesus fuck.  
> Also don’t smoke kids, it’s bad for your health.


End file.
